I was talking to someone the other day about how much my attitude to life had changed over the last couple of weeks. She wanted a detailed description and I suddenly found myself launching into a flurry of landscape imagery.
Before, life seemed like a badly maintained road through a rather arid area. The road itself was relatively straight and I don’t remember it forking at any point, but I could never see where it went as it just stretched off over the horizon, and even after covering some distance, everything looked the same. On the other hand, there was certainly no reason to stray off this road, as the terrain around was unremarkable, uninviting and indeed probably dangerous: I might have got lost and died of thirst or been eaten alive…
But now the landscape has changed dramatically and will probably continue to do so. It’s a different world, looking much more three-dimensional, verdant, infinitely varied. There are trees offering shade, and meadows, hills and valleys (some of it looks a bit like Teletubbyland, though I am trying not to let that bother me…), and the landscape is criss-crossed by meandering little paths that seem to intersect in places, making the issue of choosing which way to go so much less threatening. There is even the option of going off the beaten track for a while, as the grassy areas are nice and soft under the feet.
I think the best bit is the little springs and wells that can be found all over the place. Rather than having to carry my own supply of water all the time in an attempt to ward off the constant threat of death by dehydration, I can just stop and drink when I want. And if one spring is temporarily dry, then there’s another one waiting to be discovered close by.
Psychoanalysis, anyone?
The last couple of times we did the stretch from Breisach to Bötzingen along the south side of the Kaiserstuhl there was little in bloom other than cherry trees and forsythia.
